PSALMS MOMENT – (18JUN19) The psalmist asked the Lord to
vindicate him because he had led a blameless life and trusted in the Lord
without faltering. One may ask, how could King David make the claim that he led
a “blameless” life? Did he not sin with Bathsheba? Did he not take a census and
cause God’s wrath to come down on Israel? Yes! Nevertheless, being righteous
does not mean that we will not make mistakes. When we look at the life of
Moses, he killed a man, had an anger problem, disobeyed God by striking the
rock instead of speaking to it, and continued to blame Israel for him missing
out on going to the Promised Land. Yet, God considered him as righteous and
even got his body later on after his death.
We as Christians can sometimes make the mistake of thinking
that we must be perfect in order to be considered as blameless before God. When
we read the Bible, however, we can find that God’s most chosen people where
those who sometimes made mistakes. Therefore, God does not choose us because we
are perfect within ourselves, He chooses those who will recognize their imperfections
and rely on Him for His guidance. As long as we live on this planet, we will
have things that the Lord must help us to overcome. Nevertheless, that is why
Jesus came, so that we could be covered by the blood and know that even in our
weaknesses, we are made strong through Him. This does not mean to live a sinful
life and take advantage of His grace because that is wicked within itself. We
are to live our lives to please Him the best that we can through the leading of
the Holy Spirit, and even when we fail, we are to repent and start all over again.
Something to ponder….
QUESTION OF THE DAY – (18JUN19) The psalmist said that weeping
may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. How many of you have gone
through the darkest times in your lives where morning seemed as if it would
never come? We live in a fallen world where many people are suffering from
depression, loneliness, fear, abandonment, the loss of a loved one, and even divorce,
where the sun does not seem as if it will ever shine again. The news headlines
tell stories of police officers committing suicide at an alarming rate, children
who have been bullied in school killing themselves, parents killing themselves
and/or their children, and even military service men and women suffering from
the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Even if you do not happen
to fall into one of these categories, chances are, you have already, currently,
or may know of someone who has a cloudy look on life because of its many
sorrows. This, however, is not your fault, or the fault of the individual
because we cannot always control life’s circumstances, but it lets us know that
we are in a broken world. Therefore, it is quite natural to feel a bit
overwhelmed in life and even feel loss at times where there seems to be more
questions than answers. The psalmist, who wrote the above verse, knew all too
well about disappointment and despair, for he was speaking of his own
experience. Yet, the Lord raised him out of the pit of hopelessness, and He
will do the same thing for you.
Tom Hanks, who starred in the 1994 movie Forest Gump, tried
to quote his mother in saying that life was like a box of chocolates. You never
know what you’re going to get. Many of us would agree that life is like an assortment
of chocolate filled candies where you never know what is going to be the inside
filling within the box. Yet, we know the One who holds the recipe to the box,
and that is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We may not know what life is
going to offer us, but Jesus has every situation that we will ever face already
in the palm of His hands. We just have to trust Him and know that nothing is
too hard for Him to handle, and our life’s surprises were already written on
His calendar 2,000 years ago. Something to ponder.
PSALMS MOMENT – (18JUN19) Psalm 31:9-14 seems like a chapter
taken out of the book of Job. Here, you have the psalmist describing the agony
that he was in and the sorrow that consumed his soul. His strength had failed
him, his bones were weak, and he was the utter contempt of his neighbors. Even
his closest friends looked upon him with dread, and others who saw him ran from
his presence. Where he had once been praised, he now felt forgotten as if he
were dead. He felt like a pottery piece that had been broken and people conspired
against him on every side. Nevertheless, his trust was and remained in the
Lord.
Isn’t it amazing how the testimonies of two people can be
quite similar? We all have a testimony that we can share with the world. We may
not have gone through the exact same thing, but someone can relate to your
story because it is their story as well. Many organizations and foundations have
been started from someone going through a life-changing experience and either they
or someone they knew, was able to benefit by helping others with a similar experience.
For example, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) was founded by Candy Lighter
in 1980 following the death of her 13-year-old daughter, who was killed by a drunk
driver, as she was walking down the street. As a result, this organization has
helped to have stricter laws in place when it comes to drinking and driving. This
is just one of many organizations where a person’s life was changed dramatically,
but they took the testimony of their trial, or someone else’s close to them, and
helped countless others. The Bible says, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the
word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink
from death” (Revelation 12:11). The
reason we have both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible is so we can read
the testaments, rather good or bad, of the lives concerning the characters
written in them.
We can gain strength in knowing that people in the Bible had the
same struggles, weaknesses, successes and failures that we often have, but we
know that we can overcome because of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on
the cross, and by reading about the lives of others who endured similar
situations in the Bible. Our strength in God is renewed when we spend time in
prayer and reading His WORD. We are guaranteed to face challenges as long as we
live on the earth, but those challenges do not ever have to be faced alone because
God has promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us. Something to
ponder….
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